Wednesday, 30 May 2012

Remember the Labour slogan before the council election? "Send Cameron a message" they urged. Voters once again believed that voting Labour would mean defeating the Tories, regardless of whether there was a Tory standing in any particular ward.

Imagine how those anti-Tory voters are going to feel when they find out that Labour's group on Wrecsam Council has stuck up two fingers to the electorate and done a deal with the Tories that gives them a Lead Member portfolio in return for "an understanding" on key votes.

This deal was struck, it seems, because Labour didn't want to be totally at the mercy of their coalition partners, the Democratic Independent Group.

Monday, 28 May 2012

Following on from the blog responding to Carl Sargeant's and Welsh Government's totally misleading Press release on Train Services in North Wales, I have sent the following letters to the Daily Post and the Leader:

Daily Post

Dear Editor,
Your report , "Wrexham and Flint express service," Post, May 25th,
paints a rather inaccurate picture of what the reality of train services in
North Wales is. This development does not enhance services in any shape or
form; in fact it is a backward step where Holyhead to Cardiff services are
being reduced from two services a day to one. Also misleading is the Minister's
claim that the new service will stop in Wrexham, when in fact the Holyhead to
Cardiff service has stopped in Wrexham since March 2011.
The Welsh Government's press release on this cut to services is pure spin
released in the hope that the people of North Wales would be absorbed by the
Jubilee and the Olympic Flame not to notice this blatant manipulation of the
news.

The Leader

Dear Editor,
Your headline, "At last! Cardiff service to stop in Wrexham" on the
front page of the Leader on May 25th, is frankly wrong! The Holyhead to Cardiff
train has stopped in Wrexham since March 2011. You then compound your error by
describing on Page 6, what is a cut in service as an improvement. In fact the
£500,000 saving is being made by reducing the Holyhead to Cardiff service from
twice daily to one service a day.
Perhaps the media in Wales should reconsider their stance that everything the
Welsh Government pumps out is not in fact accurate, they are as capable of
spinning bad news as their colleagues in Downing Street are.

Both papers unquestioningly churned out a copy and paste of the press release from Welsh Government, we deserve a better, more inquisitive journalism than this.

We shall see if the papers actually publish these critical letters; personally I think not which is why I've decided to publish them on the blog.

Saturday, 26 May 2012

The announcement to halve the number of direct trains between North and South Wales was a case in point. It was spun by the highly paid spin doctors in the Welsh Government as an "enhancement", when any fool could see it was a reduction from two direct services to one per day.

Perhaps more seriously, journalists at the Daily Post and Leader were reduced to churnalism - turning out the Government press release as a story without fully checking the facts and getting a counter view.

Such is the pressure local journalists are working against.

Plaid Cymru’s regional AM Llyr Gruffydd summed up the absurdity of cutting a service that has proved valuable and popular:

“The decision by the Labour government to halve the North-South service is nothing short of a betrayal of north Wales. After all the hard work of Plaid Cymru in government to improve rail connections across Wales, Labour is clearly determined to downgrade provision for some areas – especially north Wales. This is a typically short-termist approach which will impact heavily on the economy of these areas. It will also force more people to use roads rather than more sustainable forms of transport.“The decision itself was bad enough, but to see the Government try to spin to justify the decision and claim the service is ‘enhanced’ is nothing short of a cynical propaganda strategy more suited to a banana republic. The decision to extend the existing service to Wrexham was made in March 2011 under the One Wales government and a Plaid transport minister. To dress up this halving of the service as an improvement would make even Alistair Campbell blush. Could the minister tell us how halving the service is an improvement for the people of this area?”

Thursday, 24 May 2012

Tonight saw 80 people gather at Minera school to discuss plans to purchase and re-open the historic Ty'n y Capel inn in the village.
The meeting heard that the committee has already raised £45,000 of the £100,000 target and has two further offers of £20,000 in the pipeline.
Speakers included committee members Gale Taylor and Christine Grant as well as Tom Taylor from Wrecsam Council and Mike Williams from the Wales Cooperative Centre. I spoke about the Saith Seren "experience" which, although very different from the kind of village pub cooperative, has provided encouragement and practical help for the Minera volunteers.
The major stumbling block is that the current owner wants a change of use for the building to enable it to be sold for housing or other commercial use. Wrecsam council's planning committee successfully resisted this last year, a move upheld by the planning inspector, but there is a danger that he will attempt to try this again in the autumn.
Let's hope the Ty'n y Capel is re-opened as a community cooperative and the pub soon returns to being the village hub.

The reality is that any distinct identity is being snuffed out by the Olympic imperialism, with the goons accompanying the Torch grabbing a Cornish flag from one runner (see picture above).

Far from "selling Wales", the Welsh Government's official 2012 website features no Welsh flag or any attempt to promote Wales. There are even rumours, from the normally reliable Vaughan Roderick, that the London Olympic Organising Committee wants to ban the use of the Welsh flags from the Millenium Stadium for the opening football events.

Anyone recall the synthetic anger of the London media during the 2008 Beijing Olympics at the Chinese authorities banning flags from smaller nations?

"Draconian rules imposed by the Chinese authorities mean that flags of any non-competing nation are likely to be confiscated from fans, who could be barred from venues if they refuse to comply. Athletes could even be disqualified from competing if they break the rules."

Wednesday, 23 May 2012

Tonight saw the first meeting of Wrecsam Council since the elections on the 3rd May. There were no real surprises with Neil Rogers the leader of the 23 strong Labour Group elected Leader and Mark Pritchard, leader of the 9 strong Democratic Independents was elected Deputy Leader.

The politically balanced Executive Board will consist of 10 members, seven of whom are part of the Labour led coalition and who hold Lead Member portfolios. The remaining 3 are from the two opposition groups, Wrexham Independents and the Liberal Democrats (incidentally and even though I am still a Plaid Cymru Councillor I accepted an invitation to join the Wrexham Independents so as to maximise my influence for the benefit of the people of Gwersyllt West).

There are 5 Scrutiny Committees broadly broken down to People (Social Services and Education), Places (Housing, Environment and Transport), Economy (Business and Prosperity), Resources (Finance and Performance) and Partnerships. There are also two regulatory committees Planning and Licensing and the two new committees created by the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011, Audit and Democratic Services Committee.

The most interesting development of the night was the undertaking from the Leader of the Council to the effect that his group would forfeit the increase in salary provided for by the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales. What the effect of this is that the 4 Labour Lead Members will donate the difference between the existing senior salary (approx £19,000) and the one recommended by the Independent Remuneration Panel which is £9,000 more at £28,000, to charity!

The other two groups in the ruling coalition gave no such undertaking in respect of their senior salary increases.

It will be interesting as to how this will pan out and how much public interest there will be in senior salaries and salary increases in general, quite a bit i would think.

Tuesday, 22 May 2012

We in Wales are somewhat fortunate that we have our own Public Service Ombudsman with an user friendly web site and idiot proof instructions and you can submit your complaint electronically; pretty simple all things considered.

Imagine my horror when I was asked by a constituent to assist in making a complaint of maladministration against HM Courts and Tribunals Service (I'll get on to the maladministration later). Several Google searches later I arrived at the web pages of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and following a few more hoops I got to the complaint form...looked for the electronic version and found nothing. There were only 2 ways of making a complaint, printing a form off in PDF or printing off a form in Word. The next hoop was printed on the front page of the complaint form, "Once you have completed this complaint form, it must be signed by a Member of Parliament who will send it to the Parliamentary Ombudsman."

Basically the Ombudsman WILL NOT even look at a complaint unless your local MP requests it, now what sort of right to have a grievance heard is that? Whatever you say about our fledgling democracy in Wales its a damn sight nearer to the people with a right to take their grievances straight to the ombudsman without some sort of flawed filtering or intervention.

Now to get back to the maladministration and it is a cracker. The Courts and Tribunals Service hear appeals from those people who have been unfortunate enough to go up against the the Department of Work and Pensions medical assessment and who inevitably have lost out as a result of that traumatic experience. It is not however the end of the road for people, there are two appeals with the last appeal to the Upper Tribunal of the service. When my constituent wanted to appeal to the Upper Tribunal in Cardiff the papers were sent in a pre-paid HM Courts and Tribunal Service envelope at the beginning of February 2012, only to be returned unopened to her at the end of April 2012, because the Post office had refused to deliver it because insufficient postage had been paid. A complaint to the Tribunals Service did elicit a low level begrudging apology and a promise the appeal would be lodged with the Upper Tribunal. Personally I don't think that is good enough, peoples' lives are being severly affected by the flawed decision of Medical Assessments and the minimum we should expect is that the appeals process is properly administered.

We shall wait and see whether our esteemed Member of Parliament will support the complaints and ask the Ombudsman to investigate.

Monday, 21 May 2012

On Thursday, Andy Richards, the leader of one of Wales’ largest unions, hit out at Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood’s moves to court Welsh trade unions in a so called ‘alliance of progressives’ as “an opportunistic publicity stunt.”

On Tuesday, Andy Richards will address a Morning Star fringe meeting on 'Resisting the Cuts and Mobilising around the Peoples Charter' at the Wales TUC in Llandudno.

For consistency's sake, we expect him to denounce the meeting as an opportunistic publicity stunt.

Tuesday, 15 May 2012

The company put in charge of getting claimants off benefits and into work has had its contract ended because of "erroneous" claims and "significant weaknesses in its internal controls". A4e is also subject to a police investigation into fraud allegations with eight people so far arrested.

Let's hope none of them end up having to sign on as a result...

And before anyone forgets, A4e got its feet under the table with welfare-to-work contracts in 2001 under a Labour government.

Ministers end A4e contract for welfare-to-work schemeA4e handles government contracts worth millions of pounds for welfare-to-work schemesThe government has ended a contract with welfare-to-work company A4e after deciding that continuing would be "too great a risk", it has said.Employment minister Chris Grayling said the Mandatory Work Activity contract to help up to 1,000 jobless people in south-east England find work would end.The firm is the subject of a police investigation into allegations of fraud relating to government schemes.An eighth person was arrested on Monday.Seven others are on bail until dates in late May, June and July.As part of its work, A4e handles government contracts worth millions of pounds for welfare-to-work schemes.Mandatory Work Activity was launched by the government in May 2010. More than 24,000 people have been through the programme, which involves a four-week placement including maintenance work on houses, renovating furniture or supporting charities.The scheme is aimed at getting people into a working routine if they need an additional "push" to find a job.The Department for Work and Pensions has been auditing its commercial relationships with A4e after receiving an allegation against the company earlier this year.Mr Grayling said: "While the team found no evidence of fraud, it identified significant weaknesses in A4e's internal controls on the Mandatory Work Activity contract in the South East."The documentation supporting payments was seriously inadequate, and in a small number the claim was erroneous. There was also a high incidence of non-compliance with other relevant guidance (including A4e's own processes)."The process established prior to March fell significantly short of our expectations. As a result, the department has concluded that continuing with this contract presents too great a risk and we have terminated the Mandatory Work Activity contract with A4e for the South East."Mr Grayling added that "contingency plans" were in place to ensure "continuity of support for participants".But the company welcomed the "positive findings" of the Department for Work and Pensions' audit, and another by the Skills Funding Agency, saying: "Both confirmed they identified no evidence of fraud, systemic, attempted or otherwise, in relation to any audit completed of the contracts they hold with A4e."Chief executive Andrew Dutton said: "These findings demonstrate what I have always maintained to be true - that there is no place for fraud at A4e and make it clear that A4e has strong controls around its flagship contract the Work Programme."Our immediate task is to further enhance our controls to cement our position as a trusted provider of front-line public services."

Sunday, 13 May 2012

It is interesting to see how Scottish Labour put the importance of Unionism above their party's social and economic values by giving the Scottish Tories far more power than their vote deserved.

Scottish Labour have cast aside their committment to the social values of their core voters by sharing power with the Tories in many councils in Scotland despite the SNP having the greatest number of seats on councils.

The interests of the Union are more important to Labour and the Tories than the economic interests of the people of Scotland.

To see the same thing happening in Wales, just go to Carmarthenshire, the only difference there is that the Tories are disguised as Independents.

Vote Labour, get Tories! The message that Carwyn Jones should have sent to Cameron was, "Were with you all the way."

The Assembly's Children and Young People Committee are to be congratulated on their comprehensive report into the implementation of the Learning and Skills (Wales) Measure 2009. The aim of this piece of legislation was to :

ensure that all 14-19 learners have a Learning Pathway framework which aims to help them achieve their potential. Learning Pathways are the learning experiences of each individual learner and involve developing an entitlement for each learner. Learning Pathways include a balance of formal learning, wider choice, flexibility and a Learning Core 14-19, together with a blend of support to meet learners‟ needs.

The Committee found that the Measure had extended the choice of courses available for students but also found that there were a number of difficulties in providing 30 courses including 5 vocational courses especially in rural schools with sixth forms who had to collaborate and that a lot of time was spent travelling between venues which was neither popular amongst students or providers. By providing so many courses the attendance at some was so small as to question their viability. There was also a question mark over Welsh courses and the distance between Welsh Schools and also the ability to provide such an extensive curriculum.

This Measure has provided many challenges in Wrecsam, as in other authorities, with six forms at both Penley and Rhiwabon under threat by the need to offer more choice and collaboration as well as additional cost and structural difficulties of transporting students between 3 different venues within the county

In view of the threat to good performing schools with Sixth Forms, the first recommendation of the committee report is particularly welcoming:

The Minister for Education and Skills should review the decision to set 30 courses (including five vocational courses) as the minimum number of courses of study necessary to form a local curriculum at Key Stage 4. As part of his review, the Minister should evaluate any unintended consequences of the wider choice of courses; the balance between academic and vocational courses and the impact on smaller and rural schools.

I very much hope the Minister takes on board the recommendations of the Committee and reduce the choice of courses available to ensure viability of providers.

Increased choice does not ensure quality provision or better standards; should we not seek to teach less courses but to teach them better?

Tuesday, 8 May 2012

It was 1959 when Alexander Cordell wrote the first of his trilogy about iron making in Blaenafon, two centuries later the millionaire descendants of those iron masters are still at it, scarring the Welsh landscape with inefficient wind turbine monstrosities. The decsion today by Charles Hendry to grant planning permission for 76 massive wind turbines above the village of Glyncorrwg was disappointing and further evidence that Westminster takes scant regard of the views of the people of Wales.

Let's be in no doubt about it, this decision is 'exploitation' at its worst, Wales and Scotland are having their landscapes scarred to produce electricity in a most inefficient way and then transported hundreds of miles for end users. The land area of Wales is 8,019 square miles whilst the land area of England is nearly 50,000 square miles. England is six times more than Wales but Wales has half the wind turbine Megawatt capacity (438MW) of England (980MW). The situation in Scotland is much worst; where the land area is 30,000 square miles but has 3 times as much Wind Power capacity (2,813MW) as England. The situation with Offshore turbines is reversed where Wales has 150MW capacity, Scotland 190MW and England has a whopping 1,150MW wind producing capacity. I don't suppose this has anything to do with protecting England's green and pleasant land has it?

So we know how much capacity we have but how much electricity does that capacity generate? The total UK capacity in 2011, was 6470MW which produced 15,525GWh (Giga Watt Hours) per annum, which is 2.4 GWh per MW capacity. In 2011, this varied between the 3 countries, in England and Wales it was 2.5GWh whilst in Scotland it was 2.3GWh, it might not look a lot but it actually equates to 647,000 houses with solar panels generating electricity for 12 months (Based on 2MWh per house per annum).

The DECC (Dept of Climate Change) Statistics page kindly provides us with capacity and generation data for offshore and onshore for the last 5 years but on an UK level and not constituent countries. The data shows how unreliable and insecure wind power generation is. For example in 2010, 1 MW capacity onshore generated 1.76 GWh of electricity whilst offshore produced 2.27GWh. It is fair to say that in some years onshore installations has generated more electricity than offshore turbines but in the last 3 years offshore has out generated onshore wind turbines. What arguments there are for wind power is for offshore wind and not onshore

It is accepted that wind turbines only operate for 23% of the time and produce on average 2GWh, whilst a 1MW capacity 'traditional' power plant (including nuclear) operating at 100% will produce 8.76GWh per annum.

The evidence produced here is hardly a ringing endorsement for wind power and its time our representatives in Cardiff started to wake up and realise the dangers of covering our landscapes with turbines which dwarf Nelson's Column.

Saturday, 5 May 2012

The council election results in Wrecsam were a disappointing reflection on the work put in by the 13 Plaid Cymru candidates. Arfon Jones in Gwersyllt West retained his seat with an increased majority and four other candidates lost by fewer than 70 votes. Cllrs Carrie Harper and Marc Jones were among them. In Rhosnesni Mike Davies came within 27 votes of unseating Labour and in Erddig Teri Birch was close to beating the independent councillor - great efforts considering these were first outings.

Plaid has never stood so many candidates in the borough and amassed support in such disparate areas.

There were local and UK factors at work when assessing the results, but the main issue generally was the UK political scene, which saw Labour advance on an anti-Tory/Fib Dem tide. The weakness of the Welsh media meant that another positive alternative to the coalition government was never on the horizon for voters, despite our best efforts.

Even so, there are positives to be gained amid the disappointment of losing two councillors. One is that we increased our vote in all but one of the 13 seats we contested and we have also gained new community councillors across the borough.

Plaid Wrecsam will regroup and move on from this setback. We've had worse setbacks and we will be back.

Wednesday, 2 May 2012

The police have been informed tonight of an incident involving Labour county councillor Malcolm King and a group of other men, who are alleged to have harassed another Councillor in Caia Park the eve before the local council elections.

Independent councillor for the Smithfield ward in Wrecsam, Keith Gregory (pictured left) said: “Tonight at 5.30pm my four year old daughter started panicking as there were four men standing in our garden, laughing and shouting, they then started rattling our front door. I looked through the window and recognised one of the four men as Cllr Malcolm King the Labour Member for Wynnstay, Wrexham who is also the Manager of the children's centre The Venture. There were also two members of staff and a teenager whom I've now been told is a 15 year who also attends The Venture.”

“ I was stunned to see the young lad was taking photographs of the other three in my garden. I went out to ask them what they were doing, to which he and the others laughed and walked off up the road. Following this, another Labour community councillor Brian Halley then appeared at my property and said ‘its only Malcolm and the lads having a laugh’. I later found out they were delivering leaflets for a fellow Labour candidate Pat Williams in my ward, I also subsequently found a leaflet they had tried to stuff under my door.”

“It was a very unsettling experience for me as I wasn’t sure what was going on. We have had threats before and the police have installed cameras at my property because of those. At the same time, the last thing I need is the stress of being intimated like this after spending last 6 months in and out of hospital. It was also a very upsetting experience for my partner, daughters and grand-daughter who were at home with me at the time. I have now informed the police of the incident and they have said it is serious. They are due to interview me tomorrow.”

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